Page 68 of Captive Prize

But it just slipped out, and I couldn’t take it back. I wasn’t sure I would even if I could.

Roman still watched me, his expression inscrutable and, for a brief second, the air between us felt different. Heavy, but not with attraction, or sex, or even the never-ending power struggle.

Heavy with vulnerability, maybe?

If I were any other woman in the arms of any other man, I would say that the lonely little boy in him who just missed his mother was looking at the scared little girl in me who was terrified of the people that should have loved her.

I pushed it down.

All of it.

I locked it away where no one would ever find it again. Whatever this moment was, whatever feeling I just experienced, were weaknesses I could not afford.

“If you let me into the kitchen, I’ll cook us some proper Russian food.”

His head tilted back with laughter.

“Right, because on the world stage, everyone knows that Russian food outperforms Cuban food every single time.”

There was something light in his laughter. His entire body rumbled with it, and I couldn’t help the smile pulling at my lips.

Cuban.

His mother was Cuban. That explained so much. Why he didn’t look like his cousins, at least not at first glance. The dark golden hue of his skin, why he drank rum instead of whiskey or vodka. And it explained why he always smelled like a tropical seduction.

He was the culmination of two cultures that were very different but blended so damn beautifully.

“Come on,” I pleaded, placing my hand on his shoulder, trying to imitate what I’d seen other women do to seduce men into giving them whatever they wanted. “You cooked for me. Let me cook for you.”

“And let you near the knives?” He laughed, again. “Not a chance.”

I raised my hand as if I was making some solemn oath. “You have my word. I won’t use any knives. Scout’s honor.”

“You were not a Girl Scout,” he scoffed.

“I was. It was an easy way for my father to get rid of me for a few hours a week and it was the only time I got to spend time with girls my age before I started school, and during breaks.”

I had never told anyone that before, either.

He still didn’t look convinced. He gave me a flat look that seemed to ask if I really thought he was that stupid.

“I’m not stupid enough to think that I could take you down with just one itty bitty little knife, anyway. I’m just hungry.”

He stared at me for another moment, with that unreadable look of his.

Then he exhaled, his shoulders relaxing as he muttered a curse under his breath before getting up and reaching for a T-shirt that was thrown over a chair. He tossed the soft gray fabric at me.

“Fine, but you are wearing this.”

I held up the soft, well-worn cotton T-shirt to see the faded red-and-white emblem for the HC Spartak, a hockey team in Moscow.

Did Roman play? The image of him in hockey gear was surprisingly appealing.

I had never been too interested in the sport, but I could see Roman on the ice, graceful as a dancer, but brutal. He was the type of man that wouldn’t keep score by the number of times his team got the puck in the net. He would keep score by the number of players he took out on the ice.

Graceful, but lethal.

By the time I slid the shirt over my completely naked body, drowning me so much that the hem hit my knees, Roman was already on his feet and buttoning a pair of slacks that hung low on his hips.

---